


What We Strive For

by flinchflower



Series: Slash Me Twice [70]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hunting, Introspection, M/M, Quiet, Training, Wincest - Freeform, downtime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 06:23:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flinchflower/pseuds/flinchflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt 70: Science.  A little downtime in the cave, and a lot of heartfelt thought, and even more unspoken feelings.  That's how the Winchesters roll.  Toronto arc continues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What We Strive For

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not for profit, simply a writing exercise. Herein lies Dean/Sam slash, in an AU timeline where John did not lose his life. John appears in parental context only. Follows in series from previous prompts, but stands alone if preferred.

Only Sam could make a science out of the meditation, the awareness training they’ve been doing together. Grey Fox Running has had him build up the control Missouri taught him, reinforce the wards that Jim patiently trained him to construct, and make offerings to the orishas and the gods that Mathieu schooled him in, and topped it off with lessons that have Sam feeling, for the first time since Jessica’s death, connected with everything around him, feeling his family tight around him. He knows what’s going to happen next. They’re gonna go on a couple of hunts, now that the demon has cycled back to it’ s little hell, gaining energy for the next round with the Winchester boys, and they’re gonna get used to how this feels, this awareness of themselves, of the hunt, the deep knowing of what’s right and what’s not, a connection to instinct that was, well, instinctual before, but now is ingrained.

He suspects that Grey knows all about the conversations the three of them have had with one another out there in the canyon. Every time Sam thinks about that blind canyon out there, Amazing Grace filters through his head, that one line _“I was blind, but now I see…”_ Well. It just sticks in his head, that’s all. He’s not likely to forget his own conversation with his father. And he’ll never forget the look on Dean’s face yesterday, either, when he and Dad came back, Dean all triumphant from exacting a perfect revenge and ending the lessons, yet softened by the conversation he’d had with John himself. Sam didn’t ask what they’d talked about. He could tell, just from looking at them, that the same sort of conversation he’d had with John had taken place, and his brother and his father were happy. He wasn’t going to mess with that.

He’d just looked at them calmly, and Grey had surprised him, releasing him from lessons for the day. Sam had expected they’d go late into the night, but instead he’d beckoned for John to follow him, picking up the water containers, nearly empty, for the long trek to the stream. Dean had walked straight to Sam, who was seated on their bed, wondering if he really wanted to flex after two hours of meditating, or if he wanted to just move and surprise himself. He hadn’t said a word, just tipped Sam’s chin up so they could look in one another’s eyes, and then he’d dropped down on the evergreen boughs next to his brother. 

Sam’s close to tears for some stupid reason. He’s not sure what to do, either, but he can feel Dean next to him, warm in the chill of the cave, warm against the slight chill of his own body, where he’s been sitting for hours, learning how to be part of the scenery. It’s one of those moments where neither one of them quite moves first, but Sam moves, Dean moves, and then they’re touching, and it’s like electricity, that touch. There isn’t any need for anything other than Sam’s head on Dean’s shoulder, for Dean’s hands smoothing up and down Sam’s back, at least, not until the need happens to relate to the fact that suddenly both of them are too tired to be vertical, and the leaning back on those fragrant cedar boughs cushioning them from the floor is slow, too.

John’s not surprised to find them half asleep when he and Grey walk back in. Nor is he taken aback to find that they look like they did when they were twelve and eight, sleeping together, Sam sprawled on Dean’s chest, Dean with an arm slung around his brother. He just nods to himself, savors that rush of relieved satisfaction seeing them safe and content, goes over to pull one of the sleeping bags over them, because it’s cold in this damn cave. He’s got to kneel down to do it, though, and what does surprise him is the hand that pulls him down – he loses his balance enough to land beside Dean, and now he’s not sure which one of them to scold. But Dean’s sitting up a little, and he looks about sixteen right now, tousled hair, rings under his eyes, and John can’t help but pull him in, get his arms around both of them. And ten minutes later, there’s silence in the cave, and Grey Fox Running throws a handful of sage into the fire, offers up thanks to the gods present here, for the family that’s sleeping in one another’s arms before him.


End file.
